Banned Book Week: Cover Designs of Top Ten Challenged Books

We are smack dab in the middle of Banned Book Week, the annual awareness campaign celebrating the freedom to read. Sponsored by the American Library Association (AMA), the event takes place each year during the last week of September. Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information and also draws attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.

To help raise awareness for the event, we pulled the covers of the top ten most frequently challenged books of 2010 as reported by the Office for Intellectual Freedom.

10. Twilight – by Stephenie Meyer

Reasons for book ban: religious viewpoint and violence

9. Revolutionary Voices – edited by Amy Sonnie

Reasons for book ban: homosexuality and sexually explicit

8. Nickel and Dimed – by Barbara Ehrenreich

Reasons for book ban: drugs, inaccurate, offensive language, political viewpoint, and religious viewpoint

7. What My Mother Doesn’t Know – by Sonya Sones

Reasons for book ban: sexism, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group

6. Lush – by Natasha Friend

Reasons for book ban: drugs, offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group

5. The Hunger Games – by Suzanne Collins

Reasons for book ban: sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and violence

4. Crank – by Ellen Hopkins

Reasons for book ban: drugs, offensive language, and sexually explicit